How does 'Time & Setting' play a role in the Merchant of Venice? - Outline Plan

Extended Essay

How does 'Time & Setting' play a role in the “Merchant of Venice”?

Jal Chibber 12S1

Venice – Money, Anti-jew, Belmont – suitors from all over the world came to woo Portia.

Characters in Venice: continual prejudice and vengeful attitude portrayed by the characters.

In Venice people are prejudice against Jews because it is allowed in their religion to lend money as a business.

The Christians in Venice are against money being lent as a business so they act in an anti-Semitic nature towards the Jews, forcing them into living in Jewish ghettos, which are dark and gloomy, often being portrayed like jails.

The Christians of Venice make sure that the Jewish population know that they are not wanted in their city.

In Venice it is certainly a very fast place to live in as there are many things happening.

Venice is a busy and depressing place compared to Belmont, which is pleasant and peaceful.

The Christians in Venice are against money being lent as a business so they act in an anti-Semitic nature towards the Jews, forcing them into living in Jewish ghettos, which are dark and gloomy, often being portrayed like jails.

The Christians of Venice make sure that the Jewish population know that they are not wanted in their city.

In Venice it is certainly a very fast place to live in as there are many things happening.

Venice is a busy and depressing place compared to Belmont, which is pleasant and peaceful.

Belmont is completely adverse to Venice; their people are generally more calm and gentle towards each other. Belmont is the setting where Portia lives and the people there are of a higher class of those from Venice.

Shakespeare describes Belmont to us as having a very slow-paced living; he does this by setting very long gaps between scenes set there.

The main theme in Belmont is that of love & loyalty, Shakespeare shows us this by doing Scenes involving matters of affection like where Nerissa keeps her fathers promise, showing us how important he was to her.
The main theme in Venice is that of greed and revenge e.g. Shylock feels that he has been unfairly treated, so he tries to avenge his persecutors, by holding Antonio to his bond.

The characters in Venice are mainly men who are extremely vengeful and scornful, they are all after one thing, and that one thing is money

In Belmont the characters are mainly women who act pleasant and warmly towards each other.

By creating characters, settings, and atmospheres like these Shakespeare is trying to inform us about the consequences when people of different belief clash, I think that when you read a book like this, and you get to hear how everybody thinks you begin to understand and look at matters from a different perspective.

The language used in each plot is dis-similar as the language in Belmont uses poetic love riddles to describe the atmosphere cleverly.

Shakespeare is not afraid to show compassion in his writing as he does so by using intelligent poetry, He writes using soft words used to describe the situation whereas in Venice he uses sharp words to empathise the situation.
Subsequently he uses short sentences to portray the overall speed of the place, Venice has a very fast paced living.The words are sharp, the sentences are short and as usual they normally give reference to money.
We can see that the settings of Belmont and Venice play a very considerable role in the play, “The Merchant Of Venice”, which can be argued as almost as vital to the play as the characters themselves.